Wednesday, May 29, 2019

random and disjointed

* My mom's back over at the hospital. It's not as dire as it could be - the doctor who was going to do the vein procedure was concerned about some areas on his leg that looked like they *could* be infected, and that would cause problems if he did the procedure....so he's on IV antibiotics and I don't know if the procedure is happening later. They said he might be in for 'a couple' days but I know 'a couple' is a very flexible thing. (moreso because my dad has good supplemental insurance in addition to Medicare).

So I'm kind of stuck here today. I am told the Ford DOES work if I need it but....

Once the rain from last night dries up, I'm going to at least mow the lawn. I still have some knitting projects.

* The dress is mostly done but putting the sleeves in is on hold until my mom has a moment to help me try to fit the finished dress; I tried it on without the sleeves and it seemed a little big, so I'm going to get her opinion on whether I need to take the side seams a little bit wider. Other than that, all it needs is to have the sleeves set in and be hemmed.

* I admit some of my melancholy over my dad's being hospitalized is my own worries about my future, as someone who is "extremely alone." I don't have a spouse to advocate for me, most of my in-town friends are older than I am (and so will likely be gone when I need that kind of help) and I....worry.

The thing is, until a few years ago, the "model" I had in my mind of someone aging without someone in their house with them was my maternal grandmother. Until the last 6 months of her life (so: after the age of 90, even), she lived alone, took care of her own house, was really never hospitalized, and managed on her own. Granted, she had two widowed daughters and a number of grown grandchildren in the area - so when her eyes got too bad for her to walk the five or six blocks to the little grocery store, someone could do her shopping for her or take her, and there was someone to drive her to doctor's appointments (she never learned to drive and never had a driver's license).

And I could see doing that. Having friends, maybe, instead of adult grandchildren (which will not be a thing at this point unless I happened to acquire some as "step" grandchildren.). Or some kind of a paid car service if I no longer drove but needed to get places. (It does seem, in this life, either you have people who care enough about you/feel enough of an obligation to you, or you have to pay someone). And nowadays, it's mostly possible to get groceries delivered (not in my little town as yet, but maybe eventually. Already the pharmacy I use delivers....). Where I live now I could walk to church if I wanted to, and I could perhaps even walk downtown if it wasn't too hot out.

And yeah: part of the reason I push myself to exercise regularly and eat healthfully is to hopefully avoid some of the chronic health issues (or at least prevent their exacerbation) that some older people fall prey to...so I can continue to live alone without help.

* I've been off-and-on watching some re-runs of "The Waltons" that one of the channels (Hallmark Drama, I think?) that my parents get plays in the mid-morning.

And something struck me the other day: the show was made in the mid 1970s and was set in the mid to late 30s (later seasons I guess addressed WWII). We are now as far away from the filming of "The Waltons" as the 1970s was from the time when the show was ostensibly set.

That's kind of striking. So if they wanted to make a "feel good" family series set a generation-and-a-half or two generations earlier they'd set it in the 1970s - the era of my childhood. (though I would have been more the age of Elizabeth than the age of John-Boy in that era).

I also wonder about the whole Zeitgeist of the show and also of "Little House on the Prairie" (another show my family watched) in the 1970s. It was a big Americana era, as I remember, and there was a certain degree of looking-backward at past times (usually through slightly rose-tinted glasses). I also wonder if "The Waltons" - set as it was in the Depression, in a rural family was somehow a "don't feel so bad about stagflation, look at what people endured back then" (though some of the money problems of the era seem to have been glossed over a bit, at least based on what older relatives in my mom's family talked about when they talked about money problems back then)

I also wonder if somehow the mindset in pop culture of the time (disclaimer: I was a small child then) helped lead the way for Carter's election: sort of folksy Southern guy, a farmer....and it also makes me wonder if pop culture has become more of an influence in our politics than we thought, and if some of the tendency now (or so it seems) to elect people not above hurling rude insults at those on the other side of the aisle, and fold their arms and refuse to work with those "others" is related to the rise in popularity of so-called "reality" shows, where drama is ginned up and creative editing is used to make conflict seem more conflicty than it might actually be, and the "stars" tend to be the most-abrasive sorts.

And maybe pop culture has TOO much influence.

(I'm not QUITE to the point of saying "Mister, we could use a show like "The Waltons" again" but I admit the race-to-the-bottom of most network shows - in terms of gross-out/innuendoey jokes, or shock value stuff, or violence and crudeness - well, I do long for more "wholesome" television. Which is partly why I watch a lot of cartoons, and "Bob's Burgers" is about as shocking as I go, and there are even some episodes of that I would rather not watch in re-run)

(And another thing about "The Waltons": what was perceived as "shocking" either as an of-the-era thing or how the writers imagined it: Grandma getting upset with one of the younger boys for saying "Holy cow!" about something, as if he had used a curse word today)


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